At least one known store management system (SMS) is used with manned platforms and/or vehicles, such as a manned aircraft. Such an SMS includes hard-wired controls that enable the pilot to control the weapons mounted on the vehicle, and facilitates ensuring a weapon is not inadvertently fired. For example, a known SMS includes a Master Arm switch that is hard-wired to the stores on the vehicle. The Master Arm switch is used to either arm or disarm all of the weapons on the vehicle. Moreover, the known SMS also includes a trigger switch that is hard-wired to each of the weapons on the vehicle to able selective firing of at least one of the weapons after the weapons have been armed. Accordingly, the known SMS uses hardware discretes, driven directly from cockpit switches, to enable hardware interlocks in the SMS and/or in the store suspension and release equipment. Such interlocks are usually independent of any software processes in the SMS and, thus, provide an independent control path to mitigate software hazards.
Further, in at least some known unmanned platforms, such as unmanned vehicles that include unmanned SMS platforms, all of the command and control information is transmitted through a data link from a ground station to the unmanned vehicle. Such a protocol provides a single hardware interlock for all weapon critical functions. In such an SMS platform, it is not possible to implement direct hard-wired interlocks between the actions of an operator in a ground station, such as selection of arming states and/or depression of trigger switches, and the unmanned SMS. As such, in such SMS systems, a software transient may adversely affect the unmanned SMS and/or cause the unmanned SMS to take unauthorized actions. Further, such a data link implemented communication may be complex and/or costly to analyze, as compared to the manned, hard-wired SMSs of manned platforms.
Accordingly, there is a need to extend the manned safety approach for stores management systems on manned platforms to unmanned SMS on unmanned platforms. Further, there is a need to ensure independent and analyzable interlocks to an unmanned SMS in an unmanned platform with a level of assurance equivalent to the level of assurance in a manned SMS in a manned platform.